Disgusting II

October 31, 2008

Here’s what the McCain camp has accused Khalidi of:
1. He’s an antisemite.
2. He called Israel’s policies “racist.”
3. He said Israel has an “apartheid” system for Palestinians or is moving toward one.
4. He supported the killing of Israeli soldiers.
5. He was a spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

“In an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Khalidi said then that he ‘may have used the word “racist” about Israeli policies,’ and acknowledged saying in a speech that if the movement of Palestinians continued to be restricted, ‘it would develop into worse than the apartheid system.’
Addressing an accusation that he had endorsed the killing of Israeli soldiers as legitimate ‘resistance’ to occupation, he said: ‘Under international law, resistance to occupation is legitimate. I didn’t endorse killing Israeli soldiers. These people will take anything out of context. Anyone who knows me knows the last thing I am is extreme. I’ve called suicide bombings a war crime. I’m a ferocious critic of Arafat.'”

“Rabbi J. Rolando Matalon of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, a liberal synagogue on the Upper West Side, said he has known Mr. Khalidi for years and called the allegations ‘completely absurd and uncalled for and malicious.’
Referring to comments he had seen on blogs and television, he said, ‘In no way has he ever indicated that he favors the destruction or disappearance of Israel,’ and added, ‘He has always been consistently in favor of dialogue and common ground.'”

“At Columbia, Mr. Khalidi is known as a gregarious scholar who takes a special interest in students, often meeting them for lunch near campus and hosting dinners featuring Palestinian food cooked by his wife, Mona, an assistant dean at the university. After he came under attack this week, students created a Facebook group called ‘I stand by Rashid Khalidi,’ with 205 members by Thursday night.”

“‘It just seems really ironic to me that Rashid would be singled out as a figure in the trumped-up controversy,’ Alan Brinkley, Columbia’s provost and a friend of Mr. Khalidi’s since 1985, said in a telephone interview Thursday. ‘In a field that is often politicized, he is respected by people on the right as well as the left.'”

“Martin Peretz, the Israel-based editor of The New Republic, and a man who is to Zionists what Sarah Palin is to moose-shooting anti-abortionists, says ‘I have written more appreciative words about Khalidi than Obama ever uttered. In fact, I even invited Khalidi to speak for a Jewish organization with which I work.’”

Some antisemite this guy is, being supported by rabbis and pro-Israel writers. What’s next, is he going to be supported by the Republicans themselves? Actually, yes:

“But McCain has his own connection to Khalidi.
In 1993, McCain became chairman of the International Republican Institute. He still chairs that respected organization.
That same year, Khalidi helped found the Center for Palestine Research and Studies, self-described as “an independent academic research and policy analysis institution” created to meet “the need for active Palestinian scholarship on issues related to Palestine.” (Its archived Web site is HERE.)
Khalidi was on the board of trustees through 1999.
According to tax returns, the McCain-chaired IRI funded the organization Khalidi founded and served on to the tune of $448,873 in 1998 (click HERE to see the tax return)* as first reported by Seth Couter Walls at HuffPo.
The IRI continued to give money to the CPRS after Khalidi left the group as well.”

McCain’s palling around with terrorists!! Yet here’s McCain adviser Michael Goldfarb (I’m putting the actual video here, because this needs to be seen to be believed):

Wow. This is America?

As for Khalidi calling Israel an “apartheid” system, if that makes you an antisemite and terrorist, then I suppose US President Jimmy Carter is an antisemite and a terrorist. The title of his book is Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

I can’t believe this is really happening, but it is. But most of all, do we really need this??!!:

Seriously?? Even the people at FOX NEWS can’t believe this!! JOE THE FUCKING PLUMBER is going to set us straight on the Israel-Palestine conflict??!! Yes, this is obviously ridiculous, but someone needs to tell John McCain that. He’s been trotting Joe out all over the country to rally the knuckleheads. McCain: “I’m going to Washington and I’m going to bring Joe the Plumber with me!”

Maybe Josh Marshall is right after all. Maybe even launching a defense like this is beneath us all. I mean, you don’t actually believe that McCain and the people in his campaign BELIEVE any of this stuff, do you? None of this has anything to do with reality, in the end. The real message they want to get out is this: Barack Hussein Obama is friends with a guy named Rashid Khalidi, and those are both Terrorist names. And Khalidi is of Palestinian and Lebanese descent, i.e., he’s an A-rab. And his father was a Muslim, just like Obama’s father. And we all know what that means. Too bad he’s not black, too – that’d be worth another couple of points in the polls for McCain. And just imagine if we had a photo of him in a turban.

One last thing – the LA Times wrote about that tape in APRIL. McCain brought this up in the last week of the election. In OCTOBER.